The present invention relates to printed media production and in particular binding pages of printed media into bound documents.
Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending applications filed by the applicant or assignee of the present invention simultaneously with the present application: 09/575,197, 09/575,195, 09/575,159, 09/575,132, 09/575,123, 09/575,148, 09/575,130, 09/575,165, 09/575,153, 09/575,118, 09/575,131, 09/575,116, 09/575,144, 09/575,139, 09/575,186, 09/575,185, 09/575,191, 09/575,145, 09/575,192, 09/575,181, 09/575,193, 09/575,156, 09/575,183, 09/575,160, 09/575,150, 09/575,169, 09/575,184, 09/575,128, 09/575,180, 09/575,149, 09/575,179, 09/575,187, 09/575,155, 09/575,133, 09/575,143, 09/575,196, 09/575,198, 09/575,178, 09/575,164, 09/575,146, 09/575,174, 09/575,163, 09/575,168, 09/575,154, 09/575,129, 09/575,124, 09/575,188, 09/575,189, 09/575,162, 09/575,172, 09/575,170, 09/575,171, 09/575,161, 09/575,141, 09/575,125, 09/575,142, 09/575,140, 09/575,190, 09/575,138, 09/575,126, 09/575,127, 09/575,158, 09/575,117, 09/575,147, 09/575,152, 09/575,176, 09/575,115, 09/575,114, 09/575,113, 09/575,112, 09/575,111, 09/575,108, 09/575,109.
The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference. Each application is temporarily identified by its docket number. This will be replaced by the corresponding USSN when available.
With the advent of the Internet has come the opportunity for the print media industry to publish xe2x80x9con-linexe2x80x9d rather than producing and distributing traditional paper based publications. On-line publishing has a number of advantages. From the consumer""s point of view, information is available on demand, information can be navigated via hypertext links, information can be searched, and information can be automatically personalised. From the publisher""s point of view, the costs of printing and physical distribution are eliminated and the publication becomes more attractive to advertisers as it can be targeted to specific demographics and linked to product sites.
On-line publication also has disadvantages. Computer screens are inferior to paper. At the same quality as a magazine page, a SVGA computer screen displays only about a fifth as much information. Both CRT""s (Cathode Ray Tubes) and LCD""s (Liquid Crystal Displays) have brightness and contrast problems, particularly, when ambient light is strong. Ink on paper, being reflective rather than emissive is both bright and sharp in ambient light. Accordingly, people have a natural preference to read newspapers, magazines, catalogues, brochures and other publications in a bound paper based format.
Known digital printers, and in particular digital inkjet printers, do not make any provision for binding together the pages of printed media. Such an arrangement would conveniently provide for bound document production in the small office/home office (SOHO) environment. This would also permit some of the existing drawbacks of on-line publication to be addressed. However, for this arrangement to be widely adopted it can not be inconveniently slow. Therefore, any provision for binding separate pages into a bound document must not add a significant amount of time to the production of the document.
It is an object of the present invention to provide means to bind pages of printed media into bound documents suitable for use in conjunction with a digital printer. Accordingly, the present invention provides a device for binding separate pages into a bound document, the device including:
alignment means to sequentially receive and align each page with a predetermined position; and
binding means for sequentially binding the second and subsequent pages to the previously aligned page.
Preferably, the device is a printer. In further preferred forms, the binding means has an adhesive applicator and a reciprocating platen;
where in use, the reciprocating platen presses each page against the previously aligned page to adhere them together. In some of these embodiments the platen is actuated by a closed wire loop connected to a high-speed stepper motor.
In a particularly preferred form the binding means is provided with a sensor operatively connected to the control of the stepper motor, wherein the sensor determines the position of the last page bound to the document to allow the platen to accurately adhere the next page to it.
According to some embodiments the alignment means includes a mechanism for engaging the edge of the page to push it into the predetermined position.
According to preferred embodiments where the device is a printer, the printer may be adapted to print the full width of the page simultaneously.
It will be appreciated that by providing a binding assembly that binds pages one by one into a bound document, it may be used with a printer to produce bound documents without significantly adding to the time taken to print the separate pages of the document. By progressively binding sequential pages as they are produced by the printer, the binding process is almost complete when the last page of the document is printed.
The present invention allows the production of printed material in the traditionally appealing form of a bound document rather than separate pages. With the aid of modern printers and computer network technology, the invention has many applications in on-line publication of newspapers, magazines, brochures and so on. The present invention will be described with particular reference to the netpage system. An overview of this system is set out below. It has been developed to allow a large number of distributed users to interact with networked information via printed matter and optical sensors thereby to obtain interactive printed matter on demand from high-speed networked color printers.
For this purpose, the Applicant has developed a range of netpage printers. Of these, the wallprinter is designed to be wall mounted in the area where the user would normally first consume the morning news such as in the kitchen or beside the breakfast table. In light of this, it is expected that the wallprinter will be one of the most widely used of the netpage printers and therefore it will be described in detail below to illustrate one specific embodiment of the invention. However, it will be appreciated that this is merely one example of the invention, which may be embodied in many other forms.